<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The House that Theodore Nott Built by Slumber</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392609">The House that Theodore Nott Built</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber'>Slumber</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(not of theodore), Gen, Post-Hogwarts, Prostitution, Slytherins Being Slytherins, polyjuice brothel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2011-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2011-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:01:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392609</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At the edge of the wizarding world, where magic bleeds into the mundane, Theodore Nott builds a house.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>30-minute Writer's Block Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The House that Theodore Nott Built</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Um. I don't remember exactly <i>why</i> it started, but somehow in my head Theodore Nott slipped out of Britain after the Battle of Hogwarts and established a polyjuice brothel in Moldova. The details around this varies depending on the fic I write, but the basic premise remains. So... this is an interpretation of that head canon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>i.</p><p>At the edge of the wizarding world, where magic bleeds into the mundane, Theodore Nott builds a house.</p><p>Build may be an overexaggeration--there is already a house, after all. Its walls are made of rotting oak, its roof a crumbling thatch. The front lawn has been invaded by overzealous weeds and there is a small forest growing behind it. The windows are broken, the floor is musty and creaking from disuse. Behind the flimsy walls within Theodore can sense the rot and age and infestation of rodents who have made themselves home in a place where no one else has.</p><p>But it is spacious, and it is secluded, and so after the pipes break, brittle with rust and grime, when he touches it gently, he turns to the woman in the smart suit behind him and nods a little at her nervous smile.</p><p>He has but a few galleons in his pouch--the most he is able to squirrel out of the family vault when the Aurors came calling, almost the last of what he has left after a few weeks of getting by. "I'll take it," he announces.</p><p>ii.</p><p>It doesn't take a short time for Theodore to fix the house. There is magic, of course--charms that can fix a hole in a wall for a pinch, transfiguration spells that can conjure walls out of thin air, even, but the magic associated with architecture meant to last longer than a short while requires more effort, more energy to expend. He works on his house slowly but surely: when he nearly loses a leg after an errant footstep leaves a gaping hole in the living room he decides to work on the floors first. There is enough wood to use outside; he manages to cut enough for his specifications, laying them out board by board.</p><p>The walls are next, and these prove somewhat trickier. He goes to the nearest village, about half an hour's walk away, and there he befriends an Architectural Charmer who tells him what to do. In exchange for helping the Charmer brew a few potions for a witch he is interested in Theodore is able to reinforce the protective wards around his house, to make sure the walls are thick and sturdy.</p><p>The windows come next; he nearly cuts a finger attempting to take the rest of the jagged pieces out. He doesn't know what to replace them with, so in their place he puts up heating charms instead. Winter is soon to come, after all. The garden he hacks at with a rusty axe; the weeds he uproots with increasingly calloused fingers. When spring arrives with sunlight and showers there is enough brightness in the house that it becomes passable for a cottage, there is enough color within that it can almost be called home.</p><p>iii.</p><p>Theodore does not intend to take in guests but one day he comes home with a stray.</p><p>He passes by her as he is walking home, cutting through one of the city's seedier alleys. She murmurs at him from a shadowed corner of an alley, catcalls him and whispers filth in his ears when he makes the mistake of acknowledging her.</p><p>She can be had for less than half a galleon an hour, she says, even less than that if all he needs is her mouth. Theodore stares at her until she looks away. She is beautiful, he thinks, or perhaps it is that she once <i>was</i> beautiful, but her cheeks are too gaunt and her lips too red, her eyes too dark, enough to look more hunted than anything else. Her robes are pressed too tightly around her waist, tight enough to display whatever cleavage she has to offer, and her knees wobble with the height of her heels. </p><p>When he asks, she tells him she is only eighteen, and Theodore believes her.</p><p>He doesn't know what makes him do it then, but he asks her if he wants her to come home with him.</p><p>iv. </p><p>There are more than a few available rooms in his cottage, and Anca (for that is her name) is surprised when Theodore only offers her a place to stay. She accuses him of cheating her out of her money but he tells her she's free to work as she pleases, only not in the streets. She looks at him incredulously but laughs when she realizes he is serious.</p><p>She takes her first client home that very night, and Theodore makes sure to put the silencing charms around each room. </p><p>He hears a crash out in the hallway and finds Anca struggling with a fat balding man who she yells is past his allotted time, and Theodore curses at him. He falls unconscious to the floor. Theodore Obliviates him and roots through his pockets to find all the money he can get. He gives ten galleons to Anca and takes down the silencing charms.</p><p>v.</p><p>Anca brings home two of her friends the very next day, and within the next month Theodore finds himself housing seven girls in his small home. There are a few spells he is able to use, charms that expand the rooms in the cottage or add extra space where there is none to be had. He gives each of them a room of their own; they are free to entertain as they are able and each month they give him a cut of their earnings. He is surprised at the amount he gets; it is more than what he has ever expected.</p><p>One day he passes by an apothecary; its owner is peddling Polyjuice potions for half the price. An idea blossoms in his head and he purchases the lot of them. The day after that he finds himself in the nearest Quidditch pitch; when nobody is looking he uses a concealment charm to sneak into the locker room.</p><p>He gets enough from the Harpies that all his girls can pretend to be a different player a night for the next week; their clients go wild for it and their earnings triple.</p><p>It is enough to attract even Muggles to the cottage, and there Theodore is careful that they don't notice the magic. (Their Muggle clients, however, provide the easiest to please. It becomes much more difficult to obtain samples from Quidditch celebrities, but there are more beautiful Muggles than he can count and they are guileless enough.)</p><p>vi.</p><p>At the top of a hill, by the outskirts of a small city of a quiet country, where the normalcy of daily living blurs into the lines of the surreal, lies the house that Theodore Nott built.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please consider donating to local organizations who support trans individuals in your area.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>